Field
The present disclosure generally relates to apparatus and methods for supply management and, in particular, relates to controlling the inventory of items in a facility, such as medical items in a health care facility.
Description of the Related Art
It is well known in the medical community, and in particular, in facilities like hospitals, to use an inventory system for dispensing and administering medical items (or “line items”). In this system, medical items provided by a pharmacy, for example, are temporarily stored in a plurality of areas or stations for administration. Many facilities today utilize automated dispensing cabinets (“automated dispensing machines,” “ADM,” or “dispensing unit”) to store medical items and provide decentralized drug distribution to patient care areas. These automated dispensing cabinets provide a wide range of medical items that meet the patient care needs for the patient care area. It is common for as high as 95% of the medication items for patients in a specific care area to be fulfilled by an automated dispensing cabinet.
Hospitals often have limited budgets for procuring medical items in view of the need to maximize staff efficiency to provide patient care. While having medical items closer to patient care areas usually increases efficiency in providing patient care, it creates a challenge in effectively managing all inventory locations for medical items throughout the facility. For instance, a cabinet that fulfills on average 95% of the medication item needs for patients in a specific care area can commonly store at any one time 500 to 750 medical items. In a typical facility having 300 to 350 beds, as many as 11,250 storage locations (e.g., pockets) within multiple cabinets with more than 15,000 items may be needed throughout the facility. This many storage locations can challenge the facility in effectively managing inventory to meet patient care needs and minimize waste through expiration and inventory that is not being utilized (or “turned”) based on national benchmark standards.
Current technology provides static PAR levels (e.g., “designated inventory levels,” which are boundary markers in inventory levels that signal replenishment is necessary) that drive reorder points for storage locations of automated dispensing cabinets. Typically these designated inventory levels are set at the time an item is assigned to an automated dispensing cabinet. It is difficult, however, to manually select and/or adjust designated inventory levels for different types of medical items, especially in facilities with hundreds or thousands of item types. At such facilities, those with the requisite knowledge to manually select a preferred, subjective inventory level usually do not have the time to set such designated inventory levels for all the different items. Providing a preset designated inventory level value applicable to different types of items is also not beneficial, as different types of items are associated with different types of usage patterns.
Further, usage patterns may vary over time, so that a pre-set designated inventory level that was correct at one time may not be appropriate at a later time. Facilities commonly do not change the designated inventory levels for cabinets in those patient care areas to meet changing usage patterns due to, for example, prescribing pattern changes, seasonal changes, patient mix change, or service line changes. In many instances, this occurs because there are too many storage locations for which the designated inventory level may need to be changed. This leads to waste and ineffective utilization of resources by excessive refill activity, stock-outs, decreased availability of medical items in care areas, and telephone calls between distribution points and the care areas.